SPEAKER: HANS SNOOK

Former Chief executive and group managing director of Orange plc.

Orange was the last of four entrants into the UK mobile phone market, but under Snook's leadership established the best known consumer brand with its 'The future's bright, the future's Orange' marketing campaign. By mid 2000, Orange had nearly six million subscribers.

The Orange CEO is widely admired for the deal he made with France Télécom, which some observers described as a reverse takeover of the latter's mobile interests. Snook has retained control of a vastly enlarged Orange, which has inherited France Telecom's European mobile business while retaining its managerial independence from the French outfit. The deal made Orange the second largest European operator after its previous owner, Vodafone, with around 20 million subscribers.

Snook will leave the board after the mobile group floats early in 2001. His announced departure is a blow to the company and comes after suspected tensions between French and British management over the decision to list in Paris rather than London. He plans to devote more time to his love of 'alternative therapies' and 'homeopathic medicines'.

Orange payed a hefty £4bn ($6bn) for a British third generation (3G) mobile phone licence and will have to spend a lot more to acquire other 3G licences around the world. Observers suspect that Orange will pass the bill onto the consumer.

Snook is a charismatic and visionary leader who has the respect of both friends and rivals.

He took the service ethic of the hospitality industry and applied it to a telecoms company. Snook cut out intermediaries and built up a high-spending customer base that Orange could then cultivate and communicate with.

Critics dismiss Snook as an ageing hippy and some are irritated by his studied eccentricity, such as turning up to black tie events in a leather jacket. A devotee of alternative philosophy, he employs a group director of strategy imagineering and futurology at his feng shuied London office

Snook was known to Orange's bankers as 'Gary Glitter's bass guitarist'.

What admirers say:

'Orange is a very good company. . . it's very able and is led very well. [While] they are a serious competitor now, they'll be an even more formidable adversary in the future - but that's what life's about.'

Chris Gent, Vodafone CEO, May 2000